The First Grammatical Treatise (Icelandic: Fyrsta Málfræðiritgerðin) is a 12th-century work on the phonology of the Old Norse or Old Icelandic language. It was given this name because it is the first of four grammatical works bound in the Icelandic manuscript Codex Wormianus. The anonymous author is today often referred to as the "First Grammarian".
The First Grammatical Treatise was of great interest to some mid-20th century linguists, since it systematically used the technique of minimal pairs to establish the inventory of distinctive sounds or phonemes in the Icelandic language, in a manner reminiscent of the methods of structural linguistics. It is also notable for revealing the existence of a whole series of nasal vowel phonemes, whose presence in the Icelandic language of the time would otherwise be unknown.
Read more about First Grammatical Treatise: Significance, Alphabet, The Author, Editions
Famous quotes containing the words grammatical and/or treatise:
“As a particularly dramatic gesture, he throws wide his arms and whacks the side of the barn with the heavy cane he uses to stab at contesting bidders. With more vehemence than grammatical elegance, he calls upon the great god Caveat Emptor to witness with what niggardly stinginess these flinty sons of Scotland make cautious offers for what is beyond any question the finest animal ever beheld.”
—Administration in the State of Arka, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Therefore we value the poet. All the argument and all the wisdom is not in the encyclopedia, or the treatise on metaphysics, or the Body of Divinity, but in the sonnet or the play.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)